Sen. John McClellan

Democratic Senator from Arkansas from 1943-1977, John McClellan was an oversized personality in the Senate history. Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the Committee on Government Operations, McClellan also was the Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (1955 – 1973) and heard the case of subversive activities at U.S. Army Signal Corps Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where Soviet spies Julius Rosenberg, Al Sarant and Joel Barr worked in the 1940s. He was a participant of the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings and led a Democratic walkout of that subcommittee in protest of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s conduct in those hearings.

The above photo, uncharacteristic of usually stern and frowning senator was taken in 1949 by LIFE photographer Martha Holmes as McClellan prepares his papers for a filibuster.